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Brexit: Leadsom criticised for saying PM could use 'unlawful' two-letter plan to sabotage Benn act - live news
Brexit: Leadsom criticised for saying PM could use 'unlawful' two-letter plan to sabotage Benn act - live news
(32 minutes later)
In an interview in the Daily Telegraph (paywall) Philip Hammond, the former Tory chancellor who had the whip withdrawn last month after rebelling over Brexit, has revived his call for a soft Brexit as an acceptable compromise. He is suggesting that the UK should stay in the customs union, and in the single market for goods, with the UK having a 12-month “break clause” that would allow it to leave this arrangement with a year’s notice.
Corbyn praises groups like Extinction Rebellion.
This would mean the UK would not be able to negotiate its own trade deals. But in the Telegraph Hammond argues that the values of these have been over-estimated. He says:
To have any hope of keeping global temperature rises to a manageable level we need immediate and radical action. I’d like to thank groups like the Climate Strikers and Extinction Rebellion for educating us and pushing the issue to the top of the agenda.
We all know these trade deals are of very limited potential value and likely to be very hard to negotiate without serious domestic economic and political consequences.
The government’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is too late and the Tories are doing little to meet it – in fact investment in clean energy has fallen for three years running. A Labour government is fully signed up to a Green New Deal. We are already working closely with trade unions and the scientific community to develop the most radical climate targets in the world.
Speaking on the Today programme, Hammond also said he thought the Conservative party was in danger of losing its reputation for economic competence. He said:
Corbyn says Labour would fund councils properly.
The economy is slowing down and the government has made a number of very significant spending commitments and I do worry that the Conservative Party’s core message for many, many years - whether people like us or loathe us - has been that we are a responsible party with the economy and the public finances ...
And services have not been funded properly either, he says.
And I do worry about a strategy which is reckless about our economic future in terms of advocating no-deal Brexit and reckless about our public finances in terms of spending money that, frankly, at this point in the Brexit negotiation, we cannot be sure we have available.
The same goes for vital basic services we all rely on, which have been carved up and fleeced by their private owners. The privatisation of our utilities, which are natural monopolies, has been a failure. People are sick of paying through the nose for a poor service while billions are handed over to shareholders. So Labour will bring rail, mail, water and the energy grid into public ownership, run by and for the public, not for profit.
Some 50 Scottish cultural figures have published a ‘declaration for independence’ this morning, setting out a series of ‘guiding principles for a new and better Scotland’.
And a Labour government will take the railways back into public ownership too. We’ll invest in public transport including Crossrail for the North, from Liverpool to Hull and up to Newcastle. We’ll reinstate bus routes and establish municipal companies making free bus travel available to the under-25s while maintaining the pensioner bus pass. Our public transport network is falling apart just when the climate emergency means we need it most.
The timing itself is interesting: just after what organisers claim was the biggest ever march for independence in Edinburgh last Saturday, and ahead of the SNP conference in Aberdeen this Sunday.
Corbyn says Labour will “guarantee every young person access to youth services in their community”.
The signatories, from across the arts and academia, include writers A. L. Kennedy, Andrew O’Hagan and Jenni Fagan, actor Brian Cox, historian Tom Devine and musicians Stuart Braithwaite and Karine Polwart.
Women will be at the heart of Labour’s programme for government, he says.
No doubt with the recent arguments at Edinburgh’s court of session in mind, the declaration itself calls for a written constitution, separation of powers between parliament and government and affirms judicial independence, as well as committing to human rights, transparency of land ownership, and the rejection of nuclear weapons.
Labour is the Party of equality. We’ll bear down on sexism, racism, homophobia and all forms of discrimination wherever they exist in our economy and society.
As this latest clamjamfry gears up, it’s worth remembering the key role that Scottish artists and cultural figures played in the last independence referendum, on both sides, although more noisily for yes. We’ll find out at the weekend whether this piles extra pressure on SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon - who drew some criticism for not attending last weekend’s march, as many of her party colleagues did.
He says yesterday’s antisemitic attack in Germany was “sickening” and a Labour government would oppose all forms of racism, including antisemitism.
She has declared her desire to hold a second independence referendum by the end of 2020, but activists are well aware that time is running out to get the necessary legislation and legal powers in place to meet that timetable.
Corbyn confirms that Labour would increase the number of uniformed police officers.
Yesterday Damian Green, head of the One Nation group of Tory MPs, had a meeting with Boris Johnson to raise concerns about claims that, if Brexit gets delayed beyond 31 October (as many people expect), the Conservative party would fight the next election on a no-deal platform. As we reported (see below), Green came out of the meeting thinking he had an assurance from Johnson that this would not happen.
But the reduction in police numbers is not the only reason why violent crime has doubled, he says.
Johnson reassures Tory MPs no-deal Brexit pledge will not be election policy
It’s also the wider impact of austerity – including the closure of youth services. 750 youth centres have closed their doors since 2012. Too many young people today are growing up with nowhere to go and no one to speak to about their lives.
We also said that some No 10 insiders were saying that Green may have “overinterpreted” what he had been told by the PM. Emilio Casalicchio has heard the same, and his story on the meeting includes this clarification from Downing Street.
Labour would deliver justice for Grenfell, Corbyn says.
A senior Downing Street official pushed back on [Green’s claim], telling POLITICO that no manifesto position has been agreed so far. “It may have to be straight no deal or it may not depending on the situation,” the official said. “We are keeping our options open. I suspect Green has over-interpreted the meeting. There are many cards left to play in the game before we get to a manifesto.”
After the horror of Grenfell it’s astonishing that the Tories are still failing to make tower blocks safe. Nine out of ten private blocks with Grenfell-style cladding haven’t had it replaced.
Two MPs are taking the government to court to demand an independent inquiry into the UK’s complicity in torture after “years of dither and delay”, the Press Association reports. Labour’s Dan Jarvis and Conservative David Davis are bringing legal action alongside the campaigning justice charity Reprieve, seeking a full judge-led inquiry into “the truth of the UK’s role in post 9/11 abuses”. It is alleged the refusal to hold a hearing is contrary to article three of the European convention on human rights, which requires governments to fully investigate credible torture allegations, and also violates the common law prohibition of torture.
Labour will ensure people aren’t living in death traps. And we will deliver justice for Grenfell.
Britain’s economy contracted by 0.1% in August, according to the Office for National Statistics’ latest growth report. My colleague Graeme Wearden has full coverage in his business live blog.
Corbyn says today is world homelessness day.
UK economy to avoid Brexit recession despite shrinking in August - business live
And let me say this on World Homeless Day: in the fifth richest country in the world no one should be sleeping rough. We all know it’s wrong. It’s Labour that will end rough sleeping.
In an interview on ITV’s Peston last night Andrea Leadsom, the business secretary, suggested that, if Boris Johnson has to write a letter to the EU requesting a Brexit extension - which is what the Benn Act says he will have to do, if there is no deal - he might also send a second letter, making points intended to persuade EU leaders against granting an extension. There has been speculation for some time that this might be the loophole Johnson intends to use to ensure the UK leaves the EU on 31 October, as he has promised, and that he obeys the Benn Act, as he has also promised.
Corbyn quotes from the report (pdf) from the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty.
Asked about this possible tactic, Leadsom said that it would be “perfectly reasonable” to act in this way.
If I told you that our social security system has been “deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos” you might think, ‘Well, he would say that.’
.@andrealeadsom tells @peston it’s “absolutely” reasonable for Boris Johnson to send a second letter to the EU saying he doesn’t want an extension. Watch the full interview at 10.45pm on #Peston pic.twitter.com/Xyc7afoiSs
But if I told you those aren’t my words but the damning verdict of the United Nations, no less, you get a sense of the damage wrought by nine years of Tory austerity.
But there is a problem; lawyers say that doing this would be not only not reasonable, but unlawful too. This is what Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, tweeted last night. He’s a QC.
Turning to welfare, he says:
Andrea Leadsom’s comments are neither the spirit nor the letter of the law. If there is no deal by the end of next week, the Prime Minister must ask for, and accept, an extension. One letter. No equivocation. https://t.co/Uuyjbf3BiY
A Labour government will change the whole culture of the DWP. It will become the Department for Social Security to give people dignity and respect.
This is from Joanna Cherry, the SNP’s justice and home affairs spokeswoman, who is also a QC.
Social security shouldn’t be about forcing women into the indignity of having to fill out a four-page form to prove their child was born as a result of rape as 500 women had to do last year.
No it’s not because @BorisJohnson promised Scotland’s highest court to comply with the #BennAct AND not to frustrate its purpose so these silly childish tricks are out. Just as well we have the option to go back to court on 21 Oct #Brexit #ScottishBackstop https://t.co/w0bu7J1FQC
Labour will scrap Universal Credit and introduce an emergency package to immediately end its worst aspects. Ending the benefit cap and the two child limit, which alone will stop up to 300,000 children being pushed into poverty.
In a blog yesterday for the UK Constitutional Law Association, Jeff King, a law professor, specifically said that the plan floated by Leadsom would be “patently unlawful”.
And, yes, that means the end of the disgusting rape clause.
An option mooted in the Daily Telegraph suggests that the PM might send two letters, the second asking the European council to disregard the one required by the Benn Act. It would be absurd as well as patently unlawful. The European council would seek clarification and the matter would end up before a UK judge, who would make short work of it. The statutory request is required by a law whose aim is clear, and the second letter would seek to frustrate the operation of that law. The correct authority for that proposition is Miller v SS for Exiting the EU [2017] UKSC 5 (Miller No.1): there exists no foreign affairs prerogative power that would operate to frustrate the purpose of a statute. A court would be required to declare that the second letter was issued without lawful authority. The European council would be instructed that that there is only one valid letter.
We’ll end the five week wait for the first payment, end the Tories’ vicious sanctions regime, end the bedroom tax and - because we’re committed to reducing poverty - we’ll end the benefit freeze.
The FT’s legal commentator David Allen Green says it’s the Padfield case that explains why the Leadsom gambit would be illegal.
We’ll control welfare spending by tackling low pay and insecure work ... and rip-off rents. Social security shouldn’t be subsidising bad employers and greedy landlords.
General purpose tweetTo any piece of the form "Has [x] discovered a way round the Benn Act?"The initial answer is "No, Padfield"Only if the piece explains how the 1968 case of Padfield is also sidestepped, then the piece is legally worthless briefed by the legally amateur
Turning to adult social care, Corbyn says the current system is “a disgrace”.
And it is worth quoting what the advocate general for Scotland, Lord Keen, told the Scottish court in the case referred to by Cherry. Keen said the PM accepted that he “cannot frustrate” the purpose of the Benn Act. The full quotes are in the judgment (pdf).
Nearly £8 billion has been taken from councils’ social care budgets since 2010. 87 people die every day while waiting for the care they need. It’s a disgrace, frankly, that we treat our older people in this way.
On the Today programme this morning Kwasi Kwarteng, a business minister, ducked a question about whether a two-letters strategy would be an option. He said that he was not a lawyer, and so could not comment on the rights or wrongs of this issue, but he did say the government would obey the law.
A Labour government will introduce free personal care providing help with daily tasks like bathing, washing, and preparing meals. This will be the first step to creating a National Care Service, easing the fear of getting older.
As the Liverpool Echo reports, there is speculation that the Boris Johnson/Leo Varadkar meeting will take place in the city.
Turning to education, Corbyn confirms Labour would scrap university tuition fees, end SATS for 7 and 11-year-olds and rebuild Sure Start.
This would be another reason why No 10 might want to keep the location of the talks secret, because Johnson is still unpopular in the city because of an editorial he published when he was editor of the Spectator 15 years ago that was offensive to Liverpudlians.
Turning to health, he says:
Yesterday Steve Rotheram, the metro mayor for the Liverpool city region, posted these on Twitter.
For a decade our NHS has been run down, carved up, and prepared for privatisation. A Labour government will reverse this. We’ll repeal the Tory-Lib Dem privatisation Act of 2012. We’ll give our NHS the resources, equipment and staff it needs. That means more GPs and nurses and reduced waiting times. And under Labour prescriptions in England will be free.
If Boris Johnson is in Liverpool this week – he should put time aside to, at long last, acknowledge the pain he caused as Editor of the Spectator, in publishing an article that smeared our city and the lives of 96 football fans who lost their lives at Hillsborough. https://t.co/s3LbHLSs1n
And he restates the policy he announced at conference - big drug companies would no longer be allowed to “hold our NHS to ransom”, he says.
NOTE: 96 – not “more than 50” – as the piece contemptuously put it. They were 96 innocent men, women and children who were unlawfully killed in Britain’s worst ever sporting disaster.
Corbyn says Labour would raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour for all workers over 16 immediately.
On three separate occasions when I have raised this issue with him, and on the floor of House of Commons when pressed by @meaglemp, he has refused to apologise for the hurt those comments caused.
The chancellor, Sajid Javid, has said the minimum wage will not rise above £10 an hour until 2024, and only for those aged 21 and over.
If Boris Johnson wishes to be a Prime Minister for the whole United Kingdom – not merely parts of it – he must do the right thing and apologise unreservedly, once and for all.
So a Labour government will immediately raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour for all workers from the age of 16.
In fact, Johnson has apologised for the Spectator article.
And Corbyn runs through some of the party’s other flagship policies for workers.
The most important event today will almost certainly be Boris Johnson’s private meeting with Leo Varadkar, his Irish opposite number, where the two leaders will make one final attempt to reach agreement on an alternative to the backstop, which is the key that would unlock a Brexit deal. But it is also the event that may be hardest to report. Yesterday No 10 just said the meeting would place at lunchtime somewhere in the north west of England. “There are no media opportunities and this will not be open to the media or the pool,” the Downing Street operational note said. Obviously that won’t stop journalists trying to find out where the meeting is taking place, and doorstepping the two PMs, but they may not succeed.
We’ll create a new Ministry of Employment Rights to give workers a seat at the Cabinet table and strengthen the democratic voice of the workforce through collective bargaining.
In the meantime, we had a fresh warning about the dangers of a no-deal Brexit this morning. As the Evening Standard’s Joe Murphy has pointed out, in the Commons last month the Labour MP Tracy Brabin asked Michael Gove if he could give her an assurance that “no one in this country will suffer in their health because of a no-deal Brexit”. Gove, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of no-deal planning, replied with a single word: “Yes.”
Every worker will have full rights on day one of a new job; entitling them to sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave and protection against unfair dismissal. A new Workers’ Protection Agency will ensure all these rights are properly enforced. And we’ll create a Working Time Commission … to reduce the average full time working hours to 32 a week within ten years.
This morning Prof Dame Sally Davies, who has only just stood down as chief medical officer, gave a very different assessment. Speaking on the Today programme, she said that if there were a no-deal Brexit at the end of this month, people could die as a result.
But to truly rebalance power in people’s daily lives we need to go further. So Labour will give workers a say and a stake in their workplace … by ensuring a third of the seats on company boards are reserved for worker directors ... elected by the workforce.
The health service and everyone has worked very hard to prepare. But I say what I’ve said before - that we cannot guarantee that there will not be shortages, not only in medicines but technology and gadgets and things. And there may be deaths, we can’t guarantee there won’t.
Corbyn says Labour wants an economy that works for the many, not the few.
Asked if lives were at risk, she replied firmly: “They are at risk.”
A Labour government will rebuild communities across Britain with investment on a scale our country has never known bringing new jobs and fresh growth to every town, city, region and nation.
Here is the agenda for the day.
We’ll upgrade our creaking infrastructure with £250 billion of public investment into energy, housing and transport through a National Transformation Fund and establish a National Investment Bank to make a further £250 billion available through loans to businesses and co-ops to get our economy moving.
11am: Jeremy Corbyn delivers a speech on Northampton on Labour’s radical agenda for transforming Britain. As Kate Proctor reports, he will criticise Boris Johnson for using the Queen’s speech next week as a “party political broadcast” before the expected general election.
Grotesque inequality isn’t inevitable. It’s the result of a deliberate effort to tip the balance of power away from workers towards the privileged elite that Boris Johnson’s Conservatives represent.
Around lunchtime: Boris Johnson meets Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach (PM) for private talks on Brexit.
Corbyn says the first task of a Labour government would be to get Brexit sorted.
12.30pm: The Institute for Government hosts a hustings for candidates for the post of Commons Speaker.
The first task of a Labour government will be to finally get Brexit sorted.
3.15pm: The joint ministerial council, which comprises ministers from the UK government and the devolved administration, meets in Edinburgh.
After three years of Tory failure, it’s time to take the decision out of the hands of politicians and let the people have the final say.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web, although I will be focusing mostly on Brexit and on Jeremy Corbyn’s speech. I plan to publish a summary when I wrap up.
So a Labour government will immediately legislate for a referendum.
You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.
And he sums up the Brexit position confirmed at Labour’s conference.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Within six months of being elected we will put that deal to a public vote alongside remain.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
And as prime minister I will carry out whatever the people decide.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.
There’s nothing complicated about that position. It’s really very simple: Labour trusts the people to decide.
Corbyn sums up Labour’s election offer.
We might be just weeks away from the first Queen’s Speech of a Labour government.
And in that Queen’s Speech, Labour will put forward the most radical, hopeful, people-focused programme in modern times: a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild and transform our country.
It will:
Let the people decide on Brexit
Build an economy that works for all
Change government so that it works for you
Tackle the climate emergency …
Reset our global role to one based on peace and human rights.
Corbyn says Labour will back an election once a no-deal Brexit has been taken off the table.
It wasn’t long ago that Johnson was pretending not to want an election. Now he’s pretending that it’s Labour that doesn’t want one.
So let me address this directly:
Prime minister, we can’t trust you not to break the law because you’ve got form.
We can’t trust you not to use the period of an election campaign to drive our country off a No Deal cliff edge that will crash our economy, destroy jobs and industries, cause shortages of medicine and food and endanger peace in Northern Ireland.
So it’s simple: obey the law, take No Deal off the table and then let’s have the election.
Corbyn starts by describing next week’s Queen’s speech as a “cynical stunt”.
On Monday, we will be treated to the farce of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, amid full pomp and ceremony, setting out an agenda to parliament that it has no intention and no means of delivering.
Because this government isn’t going to put any legislation before parliament.
It has a majority of minus 45, a 100 per cent record of defeat in the Commons and is seeking a general election which will rapidly end the parliamentary session the Queen is about to open.
Holding a Queen’s Speech before an election is a cynical stunt.
Johnson is using the Queen to deliver a pre-election party political broadcast for the Conservative Party.
Stage set for Jeremy Corbyn speech in Northampton. Lots of activists here. Definitely has something of an election rally feel to it. pic.twitter.com/eCV0VEnyQI
